Blog of Sal

T wo years ago today I ran my first (and only) ultra trail race at the Sulphur Springs 50km in Ancaster, Ontario. The first half of the race felt amazing. I'd done the training and I mean, I was flying. I even felt good until after the massive hill around the 29km mark... Then, at the 30km turn-around I realized I was in trouble. As I headed back down the hill a woman I'd been keying off for much of the race pulled away, gradually out of sight. (She'd eventually beat me by over 25 mins.) I wanted badly to go with her. Alas, the wheels came off. It's an interesting feeling to be engaged in an activity where your mind and body are at odds. My body was screaming at me to chill. My mind wanted a sprint. The compromise was that I didn't stop running and was able to stay in the top 30% of the field. If my body had its way, I'd have quit. If my mind had its way, I'd have been up at the front, challenging the eventual winner, my friend and then coach Andrew Yorke.  ...

I raced the New Balance Chilly Half Marathon last weekend in Burlington. It was my first half and it went well. In 2017 when I started running again I was 230 lbs and very out of shape. By Spring 2018 I managed a couple of performances I'm proud of at the Around The Bay 30k (2:26) and the Sulphur Springs 50km trail ultra (5:40). But I lost motivation afterwards. Aside from stresses associated with having had another kid (this  little cutey ), I'd say the main culprit for my lack of motivation was intermittent fasting, which I did for 9 months (no calories for 16 hours a day, 5 days a week). Ironically, I was doing this as a way to drop weight in order to get faster. But the experiment instead left me lacking energy and motivation. I learned a lot but definitely wouldn't recommend endurance athletes do any fasting. Eventually I started jogging (and eating like a normal human) again and by the end of 2019 I'd built my mileage up to 60km per week (90-95% easy ...

With the coming of a new year I've been thinking on my 2020 running goals. I want to be consistent and also do a bit more running with my 6 year old, Sam. He drew this for me recently:  It's me in the woods with running clothes on And so I've adopted a running mantra: run easy and stay the course . It prompts me to keep moving while reenforcing how true progress takes time. The endurance app company  Strava  sent out a marketing email recently which said January 19th is "Quitter’s Day", the date when the most aspiring athletes break their New Year's resolutions. C'mon guys! Can't we do better than that?! When you haven't been working out you get an intense surge of positive energy when you first start. Then you see dramatic improvement very quickly. This probably leads to people misinterpreting their real fitness level and taking their training too seriously too fast. "Hey if I can improve by 20% in just two weeks, imagi...

Follow my running  on Strava I cut today's run short. I thought I might escape the rain but it started coming down on me in buckets at 4km. I'm feeling 100% injury free but maybe a bit burned out. I've gone from 15k easy running per week to 44k these past 8-10 weeks. Apparently, (according to a report I saw based on Strava data) most BQ qualifiers ran about 80k-90k per week in peak training. Of course that should include tempo, threshold, and interval training as well as long slow distance (LSD). All I've been doing is LSD. 50km consistent without issues is my goal now. To achieve it without over-stressing I need to focus on getting enough rest at night. This is tough with a co-sleeping baby. Ansel is nearly a one-year-old and almost walking! I'm curious whether he'll start walking before I hit 50km for 3 weeks in a row.